Three things we learned from Arsenal 1-1 Brighton & Hove Albion - by Alan Alger

We’ve seen things you’ll never see?

Once again Arsenal became the test case for a ‘letter-of-the-law’ piece of officiating that you will never see repeated. Declan Rice’s second yellow card on Saturday is the worst Premier League decision, made by a referee, that I can recall.

I knew this long before the game was over having availed myself of the premium Wi-Fi and watched back on social media before the final whistle. I described the incident to those around me – most of them having been convinced it was for a dive (in their defence we couldn’t have been further away).

There was no justification for Chris Kavanagh to produce a yellow card for that incident. There was no delay to a restart there was no opportunity for a Brighton counter attack. He didn’t even strike the ball that clearly. It’s absolutely bizarre.

But we’ve seen it before… Martinelli’s two cards in one passage of play, Tomiyasu’s ‘delayed’ throw. The letter-of-the-law seems to only be a thorough consideration when we are on the receiving end. 

So, is it conspiracy or incompetence? I’d still like to maintain it’s the latter because the former opens a huge can of worms. PGMOL boss Howard Webb seems to be more concerned with his profile and being seen to say and do the right thing than actually running a faultless outfit.

The poor application of VAR, picking and choosing when to apply rules and the general lack of control of matches have all got far worse on his watch.

Refereeing is a hard job, but with all the tools available and a degree of common sense the regime under Webb could easily avoid the kind of incidents that any social media compilation will make a mockery of.

Yet they continually deliver ammunition to those who can make compilations showing our club is treated differently.

Stop the clocks…

If you paused the game just before Rice’s sending-off at the weekend, then Arsenal were statistically well on top of a relatively free-flowing game.

Brighton had their usual passages of neat play without threatening, but we were the ones with real penetration. Our decision making and quality in the final third did leave a lot to be desired though.

Final passes played just too short or too long, players overlapping into the wrong spaces. Everything was a little disjointed, despite stats showing a degree of domination on shots and possession – and most importantly the scoreline.

Kai Havertz well taken goal gave us a lead to protect with 10-men. Playing with insufficient numbers had little impact on Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal teams of the past and we quite often held on or even overcame scorelines when in that situation.

The Premier League is much more difficult now and well-coached teams know how to exploit having that extra man. In some ways we did well to hold on to a point with the late pressure they put on our backline.

The midfielders and forwards continued to make wrong decisions in vital moments and we barely created anything of note while trying to play a countering game. Martin Odegaard worked tirelessly all game, especially when making up for Rice’s absence, but was at fault a number of times in picking the wrong pass.

Thomas Partey was a passenger at times and his previous top trump category of strength seems to have been missing in incidents in this game and when easily pushed of the ball at Villa Park last week. I don’t think he can be relied on in the kind of system Mikel Arteta wants to play.

Go let it out…

I’ve often referred to the tremendous quality that Arteta has instilled in this team for retribution. His squad quite often right wrongs within return fixtures and I really look forward to seeing off Brighton at the Amex later in the season. Also making them pay for their coach’s comments on the incident.

The team have a far better chance to make it up to the fans, albeit in delayed by the International break, when we go to N17 in a fortnight. Tottenham continue to disappoint their own set of fans as they look for some kind of turned corner under Big Ange. Their defeat at Newcastle on Sunday posed as many questions as the Australian inherited well over a year ago.

The absence of Declan Rice for an away North London Derby is a huge disappointment considering his contribution there last season.

It’s evident the high bar he set for himself last year will be hard to replicate consistently and a break might come in handy, but you’d rather that was for a less important match.

Certain players will have to step up, and you’d assume Jorginho will be primed to play a part.

We have the quality to expose their high line and disorganised defence and we can still be confident of putting in a performance and getting a result.